New Yorker Memory Lane

Rejection can be good

Walking around midtown Manhattan today, I decided to stop by the old New Yorker building on West 43rd street. I may be drawing the building for my documentary, so I took some photos of it. Just approaching the building, I was flooded with memories and the feelings I used to have as I walked into the building to drop off my weekly batch of drawings. In the earliest days of submitting, I was terrified.

Inside, the bank of elevators is unchanged The first elevator, #1A, used to be manned because I heard that William Shawn, the editor-in-chief when I started, didn’t like automated elevators.

The newsstand where I often bought gum, is still there.

This blank wall below used to be a Chinese take-out place where we cartoonists would gather after we dropped off our work on the 20th floor. Then we’d go to a restaurant for lunch.

It took me about two years of submitting 8 cartoons weekly before I sold one cartoon. Here are all the rejection slips I saved.

Sometimes the editor would add a note to the batch that I picked up the following week. If it said “holding one” it meant they were considering one to buy. Very exciting! I would hurriedly look through the returned drawings to try to remember which one they might be holding. Sometimes I’d get a scribbled “Sorry,” which I interpreted as encouraging.

I sold my first cartoon to The New Yorker in the fall of 1979 and it’s been a great ride. So far.

Some of this will be in our documentary, Women Laughing, which we are working on furiously right now.

Thanks for going down memory lane with me for a moment. Will resume politics tomorrow.

Here is a link to learn more about our film:

Have a great Friday, see you tomorrow!